


you are the heartbreak (we'll make it feel like the first time)

by orphan_account



Category: SEVENTEEN (Band)
Genre: First Time, M/M, Underage Drinking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-21
Updated: 2016-10-21
Packaged: 2018-08-23 14:47:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,503
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8331826
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Point is, Seungcheol and Seungkwan are just two kids trying to make things work.





	

**Author's Note:**

> *** There are not-entirely-explicit mentions of high school students having sex. And drinking. ***
> 
> Hi, hello, I feel like it's been a while? Forgive the constant shifts. I thought they made sense, and at least I hope they will to you. Seungkwan and Seungcheol are the same age in this fic, just to be clear about that as well.
> 
> I honestly haven't written in a while. Continuously, I mean. What started out as word vomit ended as word vomit, though I somehow turned this into fic. Even so, I hope you guys enjoy. I miss you guys a lot and I hope I can write more frequently from now on. ♡

Imagine this: the hazy lights that give a city its worth. You, standing under the stoplight like you want it to tell you a story, if the lady who passes by at exactly ten-fifteen in the morning finally brought her poodle to the vet, if she gave it that ball-shaped tail she always loved about poodles. Me, waiting for the stoplight to be in unison with my thoughts—it has to turn red when I think it to. So far, it’s only happened once and I could feel the world shift on me, under my heels, tilt back then lurch forward—

“Stop,” Seungkwan groans, his head lolling back until he stops to think about the weight of his head on his shoulders, his legs pulling him back to the ground until he’s seated on the sidewalk watching the way the wind shifts the leaves.

Seungcheol sits beside him; the way their shoulders are brushing promises a summer romance of teenagers, all the fingers sticky from lemonade, sand sticking to the backs of thighs, sunsets and bike rides—but they’ve been sitting that way for a year now, always on this stop on this intersection at two in the morning. The stoplight ticks like a pop song.

Tell me this: you, wondering how to bring yourself up back to your feet. Me, on standby. Your face as red as that awful armchair we made you throw away. The light turns green. You look sick.

“I’m serious, Seungcheol,” Seungkwan whines. His shoulders withdraw so he could vomit. Seungcheol pats him on the back, pulls his coat back, rinse and repeat.

“I’m not saying anything,” Seungcheol says. Seungkwan replies with another lurch then a sob, wiping his tears away with hands that have been curled into fists, swallowed up in his coat like something tiny, covered up to cover the sounds he can’t hear but are too loud. Seungcheol pulls him away from the vomit.

 

 

 

Let’s say this: you, me, a fixation on extremities. You kiss the tips of my fingers in the dusty, hazy apartment while everyone is asleep. You take my fingers into your mouth and lick around the edges, knowing fully you can’t chew and swallow. I’d fuck you if space permits it.

I’d fuck you anyway in cramped spaces we’d call someone else’s. You can nip on my fingers to keep quiet.

“Kinky shit,” Seungkwan says with a laugh. Still, he tugs on the hem of Seungcheol’s shirt and eagerly tries to slip it off to get to the warm skin underneath. Seungkwan thinks his fingers can fit into the nooks and crevices of Seungcheol’s body, that he can slot them in any way and everything beneath them will shift, adjust, mould themselves to his touch. “God,” he breathes, “I love you.”

Love, meaning miss, meaning would kill for, meaning would die for, meaning would cry for, over, about, to. Love, meaning _think everything beautiful is_ — The syntax demands to be maintained. Love, meaning want, meaning desire, meaning _am constantly thinking of_. Fill in the blanks.

“I love you, too,” Seungcheol whispers. He kisses Seungkwan with his hands cupped around Seungkwan’s face, fingertips feeling the soft edges of Seungkwan’s hair. He can trace the shells of those tiny, delicate ears until his fingers are numb and stiff and Seungkwan’s skin is chafed. Seungkwan kisses him until lips feel superfluous.

Their mouths don’t align.

Seungkwan leans back and drags Seungcheol on top of him with his arms around Seungcheol’s neck, his legs falling open so Seungcheol can settle between them. “I love you,” he says again, and he means he wants Seungcheol to fuck him though he shivers when Seungcheol strips him down to just his skin.

It’s a humid summer’s night. Seungcheol is breathing through his mouth. There is only the lamp, and Seungkwan is orange. There is the suspicion that he’ll burst when Seungcheol places his mouth on him, making his way around until the only taste he can recall is the sweat pooled on the hollow of Seungkwan’s throat and the crooks of his elbows. It’s only half-true. Seungkwan doesn’t burst. Seungkwan shivers and cries when Seungcheol enters him.

Crying to mean he’s scared, to mean _it hurts get it out_ , to mean _it hurts but don’t leave_. Seungkwan covers his face with his palms, his groans coming out muffled. As always, Seungcheol aimed for tenderness.

Picture this: me, on top of you. Your legs around my waist. I’m kissing the skin behind your ear and the hair stuck to your temple. You, wondering if it’s okay to open your eyes.

“Did you like it?” Seungcheol asks. Seungkwan breathes out a laugh, face still red, and lets Seungcheol wrap his arms around him. They can work out the technicalities later. Seungkwan kisses him instead of replying.

Kissing to mean _yes yes yes_.

 

 

 

“Your nose is—”

“Your mouth is—”

“Your ears are—”

“My ears are what?” Seungcheol demands.

“Awfully large,” Seungkwan retaliates. “Like a monkey’s.” How many times of this body inspection? They’re not artists. Seungcheol is a poet into the lip of a can of beer and he can talk about the constellation of Seungkwan’s moles on the edge of his face, but it’s terrible poetry, no imagery beyond the inane.

Seungkwan, on the other hand, loves terrible poetry, and will kiss him for every metaphor. He’ll ask to be told about his smile again, on the grass of the park where they come to watch fake flowers quiver in the breeze, where they let blades of grass tickle their backs, the sun blinding overhead. Children playing tag on their motorised, glorified flatboards with wheels.

“I love your smile,” Seungcheol tells him plainly. “I like how earnest you look. I like how your eyes crinkle. I love your cheekbones.”

“Really?” That is, _tell me again until I believe it, until I’m satisfied_. 

Seungcheol can only smile. “You’re the most beautiful boy I know,” he’ll always say. Seungkwan always cries like he’s heard it for the first time.

Something I’ve noticed: we’re always lying down somewhere. Our experiences are tied to the horizontal. It’s like we only occur when more than half of ourselves are in contact with a surface. So in that case, I wish for you to happen to me while we’re standing up. Walk over to me.

“Do you know what you want to do yet?” Seungkwan asks, reverting to the downtime conversations after the breathless confessions of love they haven't grown out of doing. The future looms ahead, and it's frightful. Even Seungcheol wishes time would pause so he could breathe. Just take a deep breath without the sound of things crashing to the ground.

“I do,” Seungcheol says. “I want to be a lawyer.”

Seungkwan bursts out laughing. And he can't stop laughing until the tears roll down his cheeks. Seungcheol just watches, paralysed, because he doesn't want it to stop. “Seungcheol Choi, you're so bad at reading. You know that, right?”

“You're bad at math,” Seungcheol retaliates, “ _and_ science.”

The truth: there is a messianic complex somewhere, thrumming under his skin. Turn this overwhelming need into a project.

Look at this: two boys, lying down, their natural state of being. Then they have to stand up. Me, unable to go home to where reality can take place. You, holding my hand as if to say _that’s fine,_ _I don’t want to go home either_.

 

 

 

Seungcheol drifts apart as soon as their feet land on the doorsteps of their university. There is wonder, the thinkpieces, the idea that he's more than his political science classes and his supposed-to-be-submitted digests. Seungkwan gets caught up in the intellectual storm. There are new things to read, always. But Seungcheol comes back anyway. 

Seungkwan grows into his body a little better. He holds his alcohol better. There is always an occasion to drink now. Good grades, a bustling extra-curricular life. There's always a birthday, spaced so in order to see them happy in the middle of the week. Just because they can and don't have to ask anyone to buy the beer for them.

“You're really sexy like this,” Seungcheol whispers one night when Seungkwan is in glasses, a cigarette between his fingers. They won't be drinking any time soon, or so Seungkwan thinks. Seungcheol's already some cans in in his own attempt to make sense of things. It's not, none of it is making sense, but the thing is that he tried, he really did.

Laugh at this: a boy desired in his local high school, trying to get the butt of the joke to sleep with him. _See, you_ are _desirable_. You, laughing and flicking the ash of your cigarette into the dregs of your coffee turned cold. Me, horribly testing my luck.

“Really?” Seungkwan teases. That is to say, _tell me again so we can fix your wording._ That is to say, _thank you_. “You like me like this?” In a large university hoodie, no pants on, his bare leg crossed over Seungcheol’s in a way that focuses on its existence as distraction.

Seungcheol runs a hand over Seungkwan’s leg then leans in to kiss him, his tongue trying to reach in Seungkwan’s mouth. “I _love_ you like this,” he says when he pulls away, though his hands don’t leave; they wander where they can reach, which means they’re trying to slip under the hoodie to make Seungkwan squirm into his readings.

“ _Just_ like this?”

“I love you all the time,” Seungcheol corrects himself. “I think you’re sexy even when you think you’re not.”

Seungkwan rolls his eyes and tamps out the cigarette, picking up the reading on his lap and frowning at how Seungcheol’s elbow crumpled them. Then he sets it aside. “Thanks,” he bites out, not unkindly.

“Always.”

“You know what?” Seungkwan prompts as he holds Seungcheol’s face between his hands. “I feel like I haven’t told you I love you since we got here.” It feels like they’re fourteen again, Seungkwan a little chubby with the softest back that Seungcheol jokingly slept on once, Seungcheol the shrimpy kid with the charm precocious kids have—that is to say, none at all. The heart pounding. Seungkwan crying. Seungcheol looking at him like he could cry, too… out of happiness, the kind of happiness you feel at the sight of a crying boy that loves you. “I love you. You know that, right?”

Of course. It’s one of Descartes’ indubitable foundations of knowledge. _I am, I exist_. _I love you_. _And these I cannot doubt in my mind for as long as I shall continue to think them._

Seungcheol’s lips curl into a smile as he runs his thumbs over Seungkwan’s hipbones. “Tell me more?”

“I love your ears,” Seungkwan points out. He plays with them, pinches the shells of them. “I love your eyes. They’re expressive and warm.” Seungcheol hums. “I love your nose. I can go skiing on them. It looks like it belongs on an Easter Island statue. It looks like a right triangle.”

“And you like right triangles? Easter Island statues?”

“I’d like them since they remind me of you.”

“So what else?”

“I really love your neck. It’s so thick and sturdy,” Seungkwan sighs.

“I carried you home with you clinging to my neck,” Seungcheol reminds him. Seungkwan laughs.

“I love your back muscles,” Seungkwan says, “and your dimples. I love your hands, how sturdy they feel, how I like them on me.” He lets out a squeal of a laugh when Seungcheol drags him even closer, the heat of their bodies just right for autumn.

Seungkwan _can_ do poetry, but he doesn’t want to try. 

 

 

 

On any big day, there are butterflies, and they fly out of your stomach when you finally sit down to let them go. Of course, I say _you_ when I really mean _I_. I’m the one sitting down, a blinding white envelope in front. You’re hovering above me, one earbud in with the same song as it was ten hours ago when you first had to listen to it.

“Haven’t you memorised it by now?” Seungcheol asks.

Seungkwan groans. “Every time I think I get the feeling of it, I realise I don’t. My children will be born with this song in their little premature heads. I listen to it in my sleep, and my dreams are music videos.” The beautiful boy with the now beautiful words plops himself down on the chair beside Seungcheol and reaches for his hand, yanking out the earbud with the other. “How are you?”

“Nervous.”

“Do you wanna start with some good news?”

“What?”

“I’m on the shortlist for valedictorian,” Seungkwan says happily. Seungcheol somehow expected it, his little rockstar boyfriend with the big… everything. Heart. Soul. Brain. Attitude. Hunk of arm candy. “Trust me, Cheol, I have a good feeling about this.”

“I trust you,” Seungcheol says. It sounds annoyingly tiny, his voice. Even before he’s opened it, he can feel the thinness of the contents. Rejection as empty words. Rejection as having nothing else to say. “It’s not good news.”

Seungkwan’s face plummets. The song hasn’t turned off and has started another round, coming out tinny, muffled, and barely perceptible unless Seungcheol really tries. It doesn’t take long for Seungkwan to lace his fingers into Seungcheol’s limp hand and give it a tiny squeeze, as if he’s hoping all the blood would come rushing back.

Seungcheol hoped for it, too, but all he feels is a tiny hand squeezing his.

“I’m really sorry,” Seungkwan offers.

“I’m sorry but”—Seungcheol breathes out a laugh, tears pricking his eyes at the corners—“I really can’t look at you right now.”

 

 

 

Separation, meaning _I'm not good enough for you, so it's better that we don't try._

 

 

 

“Congrats,” Seungcheol says. Seungkwan is glowing. He takes the bouquet of flowers Seungcheol gives him with grace. “You deserve it.” He’s not a crying boy anymore.

“Thanks,” Seungkwan tells him.

“I’m sorry.”

“Me, too.”

“For doing better than me?” Seungcheol asks. Thing is: he doesn’t mean for it to bite; words have teeth in places we don’t know.

Seungkwan frowns, holding tightly onto the bouquet. “For making you feel like shit. I’m really sorry.”

“That’s my issue,” Seungcheol says. Then, again: “I’m sorry.”

Remember this: the sun setting on graduation day. You, cast in a hazy glow, taking a long, deep breath after what felt like the longest years of your life. Me, trailing a little behind.

“I really miss you,” Seungcheol follows up, and Seungkwan softens up, blindingly beautiful still.

“I really miss you, too.”

 

 

 

But we can flake that apart and take away the bones.

 

 

 

“Tell me again,” Seungkwan gasps, impressed with the stress of Seungcheol’s mouth, the immediacy and the urgency and the need.

“I want to start over again,” Seungcheol says and Seungkwan’s all orange, trembling and swelling, chest rising to meet the dance of Seungcheol’s fingertips. Seungkwan cries again. Crying to mean _your touch is setting me on fire_.

Crying to mean _touch me again. And again. And again._

**Author's Note:**

> it's super short but there isn't much of a structure haha please let me know what you think ;; I'm really shy about this fic in particular… 


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